Etro's Paradox
by Xerxies19
Summary: Spoilers. After the death of Etro, those that remained formed a plan to use the chaos around them to travel back far enough to save the world. The guilt of past failures weighs on Noel's heart, but for Hope he'll build a better future. Noel/Hope, slash.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Since Square thinks that completely ignoring a few important theories on time and quantum uncertainty, and then lampshading their plot holes by making an enemy called a Schrodinger, is an acceptable way to make a story about time-travel, I decided to give them a hand and fix their canon for them. I have indeed unlocked the cutscene where Caius claims that there's no way to bring the Goddess back, but considering how much worse that makes the plot holes, I decided to throw it out entirely and pretend like he was just outright wrong.

This is going to be a multichapter fic.

Main pairing is Hope/Noel, with some side pairings including but not limited to Snow/Serah and vague platonic!Caius/Yuel. That means this is primarily **slash**.

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><p>After spending three years in darkness punctuated only by the appearance of paradoxes and short, desperate kisses from his then-boyfriend, Noel found he didn't want to leave. They had finally, finally found a way to time the paradoxes such that they could know exactly when a paradox that lead to a specific time would appear, and where. There was one that would take him to the Bresha Ruins, some four hundred and ninety-eight years earlier, just hours after he and Serah had left it. They'd decided he needed to end up exactly where the new timeline was going to start, Hope worried that him even showing up in another time briefly enough to find the nearest gate could set off a series of events that would ruin everything, again. He waited at the edge of the chasm that would spawn the desired portal, knowing he just had minutes to make up his mind to jump, and that in doing so he would probably lose the Hope he knew and loved forever. They didn't even know if the stupid plan would work, if nineteen year-old Hope would be able to traverse the timeline with him if he gave him a shard of the Goddess's throne, but they had to do something.<p>

Others had been able to go back in time through paradoxes and use the gates there, in a world where the Goddess still existed, to return so long as they had shards of the throne; he supposed it was Lightning's final gift to them, she still had faith in them, so he had to keep going and hope that it would work for someone from the past as well. Vanille, Fang and Sazh had already tumbled through time to find Snow, and they were all waiting for him in the ruins. Dadj had been left in a more peaceful time with another version of Sazh until he was old enough to handle the danger they'd be facing. Snow had gone around the timeline until he found a version of Serah he could steal, leaving that time's Noel and Hope to each other with fake knowledge of a threat on the Director's life. The hunter knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they would start dating within a few weeks, and took solace in the knowledge that at least in that timeline they would get to be together. Maybe in that past they found a way to prevent the Goddess from dying, and saved Serah and Lightning too.

This version of Hope, something like five-hundred and seventeen years old but still only thirty by virtue of a deep sleep started at thirteen AF, would be left completely alone again. As the only one who didn't time travel through the gates, he existed in all the possible times when Noel could change the future, and it would cause a massive, unfixable paradox if two Hopes from different timelines were in the same time. He was at his lover's back, waiting to see him go, and the brunet didn't need to turn back to know he was silently crying. It was hard enough to lose a few friends, but the green-eyed man was losing everyone he knew for the second time in his lifespan. He'd done everything he could to save everyone, and even if he succeeded now, he had lost them forever. They could never come back to this time because it would no longer exist to them, and hopefully, he would be erased with it if they could change it. Noel didn't want to see him suffer for much longer, he was always the one left behind at every turn in the timeline they'd lived, and he'd just accepted it and pushed on with his thankless research to help people.

"It's time, Noel. Remember, if the other me is reticent to go, I give you permission to knock me out and kidnap me," he said with half-hearted humor before continuing quietly, "And remember that I love you, even if that version of me doesn't yet. Carry it with you, it'll keep you going."

"Thank you, Hope. For everything. I'll make sure this time it really does all work out, and you and I will grow old together in the world you created, with everyone else safe and sound. I'll always love you, in any timeline, and I promise to fix every mistake I made in the past."

Closing his eyes and letting a few tears slip down his cheek, he took the single jump necessary to send him careening into the maw of Pulse, the paradox opening just in time for him to pass through it, and into another place and time entirely.

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><p>Hope was more than shocked to see everyone just fall out of paradoxes an hour or so after he as debriefed by Alyssa about Serah and her time-traveling partner. To add to his confusion, the pink-haired woman was younger than she should have been, Sazh a little older, Snow appeared to be roughly the correct age though he suddenly had a brand again, and Fang and Vanille were the exact age at which they had crystallized. The group had explained that they were still waiting for another person, and when he guessed Lightning, a somber expression had made its home on their faces. In the world they'd come from, another time, Lightning was dead, and the world had fallen apart. They didn't know if changing history would bring her back or not, because she had been fighting in Valhalla, a world without time. Frowning, he wondered what he could possibly do to help them, he was exceptionally high-ranking in the Academy for his age, but saving the entire timeline and the Goddess herself seemed far beyond his reach. Everyone disagreed, claiming he was exactly what they needed, if all of them worked together they could change the future into one where everyone could survive. Any further explanation was cut short when the sky flashed and they saw something falling from it.<p>

In a flurry of activity, Snow summoned the Shiva sisters to grab the figure careening toward the ground and carry them safely to the group. They circled around the person before taking hold of their arms and lowering them to the ground. The falling star was male, with the body of a runner and strange clothes, brown hair pulled back into a ponytail with hair falling in his face. Serah ran up to him, embracing him like a long-lost friend, and the others followed. The moogle that had come with them circled him once as well. The smile on the brunet's face was hollow and brimming with a deep sorrow.

"Hope, this is Noel. In another timeline, you two knew each other," Serah explained, blue eyes shiny.

"It's nice to meet you, again I guess," the silver-haired man said, offering his hand to shake.

"Yeah, it's good to see you again," Noel replied, a tear trailing down his cheek as he said it, taking Hope's hand.

"Is something wrong, Noel?" He pressed, green eyes curious.

"I left behind a lot when I came back, that's all. It's nothing. Is Alyssa here, in this time?"

"Yeah, she is, did you want to meet her again? I could take you to her, she's my assistant."

There was something sinister in the smile the mysterious man gave him when he nodded, and the cadre headed toward the tent where he last saw the blonde girl. She was altogether too friendly toward him, he got the feeling she either wanted to endear herself to him because of his position, or she was attracted to him. Both options made him feel uncomfortable around her. She bounded up to meet them, a grin on her face as she greeted Noel, who she apparently had just watched leave a scant four hours ago. He smiled back at her and handed her an artifact of some sort, telling her he wanted her to try it out for them. The brunet claimed it would let her traverse time just as they had, and she was all too excited to try it.

She replied that she would be right back, then disappeared in a flash of light. Minutes dragged by and the blond woman didn't return, drawing an odd expression out of Noel. The others looked among themselves, confused, and Hope got the strong feeling that they weren't in on this part of the plan.

"Where did you send her, Noel?" Serah asked, blue eyes worried.

"The void. She won't be coming back. You don't know this, but she did the same thing to us, once."

"So you sent her to her death, essentially," the silver-haired man asked lowly, disturbed that he'd do something like that.

"To fix the timeline, yes. I couldn't kill her, so you and I came up with the next best thing."

"But if you got rid of her, then the timeline I took Serah from-" Snow started, confused.

"No longer exists, correct. However, there are so many versions of Serah throughout history that it doesn't matter if we destroy a few tangents, she'll still have a reason for being here."

"I sure hope you two knew what you were doing with this plan," Vanille said as they all absorbed his words.

"Uh, sure. Of course we did," he replied, laughing.

"Really inspiring a lot of confidence here kid," Sazh commented with a shake of his head.

"Hate to break it to all of you, but no one has a clear idea what they're doing with this sort of thing…Even Hope and his team of scientists could only theorize what was going to happen. There was a lot all of you were left out of, we were worried that even everyone knowing about it would change the outcome. Speaking of, we should move on to the next step of the plan."

"Lead on, oh fearless guide to the timeline," Snow replied with a snarky tone, most likely antagonistic because he wasn't used to being ordered around by anyone other than Lightning, and even then he barely obeyed.

The man rolled his violet eyes and nodded, handing Hope a whiteish-blue crystalline shard and pressing their hands together onto the gate. He noted that the once golden-colored metal was scorched, he surmised it had happened because of the burst of energy from Alyssa's trip, but he would have to ask later to confirm it. It lit from within and as he looked over at the brunet, he saw the other begin to dissipate, Hope's own arm doing the same.

"Just hold on to me, everything's going to be okay. I made a promise."

Not sure what he meant but willing to just go along with it as they were sucked into the gate, he marveled at the place they ended up. It seemed like it was full of an amber liquid he could breathe like air, giant gears and rings undulating around him. Noel laced their fingers together to prevent them from drifting apart, worry in his dark eyes. It was a little odd to be holding hands with a man who was basically a stranger, but he had no idea where he was or what was going on so he let it slide, more concerned that if they weren't attached somehow he'd float away into another time and be trapped.

"When did we meet, in your reality?" He asked, looking at the other intently.

"First when you were twenty-four, then several more times throughout the centuries. You were with me at the end, you helped all the others find their way here. I…I had to leave you behind there. My only hope is that you cease to exist in that reality soon, if we can change the future for the better."

Pursing his lips, he knew there was more to that story, but let it drop. There seemed to be tons of things more important than his future-self's relationship with a time-traveling man. The others began appearing behind him, catching up quickly. Hopefully he wouldn't be blamed for Alyssa's disappearance when he came back, it wasn't like he actually murdered anyone after all. Well, he assumed he was coming back to that time, if not he supposed the issue would be resolved by the time he returned.

"Where are we going? Or, when?" He asked the group, assuming someone knew their destination.

"Five years in the future, where with some luck, you won't be. If our theory about time is correct, you will have returned after our time trekking that's happening now and went back to work in the past, right up until a few hours before we're going to appear, where you will have sent yourself into another time period briefly. This is basically a test run to prove the theory, nothing like this has ever been tried before. If we're correct, the older version of you will have left a message with your subordinates to expect us," Snow explained carefully.

"And if you're not correct?"

"We'll have a whole mess 'a paradox to clean up when we get there."

"What if I'm there, or another version of me? Will I die or something?"

"Impossible. Only you that could exist in the future is the you now, and the you now would know not to be in that time. I think," Noel added uncertainly, brows furrowing.

"Do any of you really understand time travel and paradoxes at all?"

They all shook their heads, and he couldn't help but think that wasn't very reassuring. No one here even fully understood what they were messing with, and it could cause the collapse of all reality or the death of the Goddess that created and governed it.

"You understood it better than anyone really, or, the you I used to know," the brunet replied sadly, glancing away.

"Look, we're here!" Vanille interrupted brightly, shooting ahead of them and into the future.

"There you go, let the kid beat you to the punch," Sazh chided as the rest of them filtered back into reality.

They fell in a pile on top of one another, Hope himself ending up sprawled out on his newest companion, blushing and pulling his hand away from Noel before standing and brushing himself off. The others did the same, with a few groans and irritated huffs at the rough landing. Several soldiers and Academy members descending upon them, saluting rather than shooting as he expected them to do.

"Director! It's good to see you safely across time, your older self told us you would be coming through the gate shortly, so long as everything went as planned," one of the scientists explained as he walked up and shook the silver-haired man's hand vigorously.

"Uh, thank you. Have any paradoxes occurred suddenly, any radio chatter on your end?"

"Nothing yet sir, we'll keep an eye out for new time distortions, but in the meantime might I suggest we return to base? You left very detailed instructions for yourself there."

Nodding, hoping he could actually keep which him they were talking about straight, he followed them through the area. A few monsters attempted to attack them, but Noel and Fang destroyed them before he could even get his weapon out. They moved in a similar way, fast and brutally efficient, and he decided it must be a Pulse thing, some sort of cultural muscle memory. Climbing the steel walkway up to the main tent, he noticed the way Noel walked closer to him than the others, like it was natural for him to be in friendly distance from the other man. He thought it odd, from his perspective the other should be the most friendly with Serah, if anyone, since they had spent the most time together. But there was something different about this Noel, he seemed older than Alyssa originally described him, which shouldn't have happened unless he remained in the same time period for an extended time.

"Noel, how old are you now?"

"I'm twenty-one, I existed in the distant future for three years consecutively trying to work out how to get everyone back safely. The others were able to travel the paradoxes a lot sooner than I was, since we didn't have to get a specific one. I waited for a year before the right one opened up after everyone else had gone. Just you and me."

"Sounds like it was lonely."

"No, not really. You were good company, and we were all too busy to think about things most of the time. But then, I lived in a world where I was the very last human alive, so I'm pretty immune to loneliness so long as there's even one person with me."

"That reminds me Noel, whatever happened to Yuel?" Serah asked, turning towards him suddenly, as if she had completely forgotten up to this point.

"Still in every time, as far as I know, though I haven't seen her since Caius died. I'm sure we'll see her and him a lot more as we're going back through the timeline to try and get it right this time. He'll definitely have something to say about that."

"I hope we can create a world in which she and Caius can be happy together, where she doesn't have to die any more than she normally would."

"And all of us can be together, in the new world," Noel added meaningfully.

"All one big happy family, right Noel?" Snow teased him, and the glare the brunet sent him seemed unwarranted, but he got the sense that the friendship between the two was strained at best.

"Yeah, just missing Lightning now. I'm sure she'll be thrilled to see everyone together again, finally get to attend that wedding you two lovebirds have put off for so long on her account," Fang agreed, smirking.

One of the researchers lifted a glowing crystal out of a box that had been placed on the conference table and handed it to Hope. For a moment he had no idea what he was supposed to do with it, but then it flashed and he could hear a voice, his voice, in his head.

"_Hey Hope, it's you. I left this crystal to tell you that you don't have to go all the way back to 5AF and continue your work, just keep on the mission you're currently on and hopefully things will fall into place. By the time you read this, this version of me will be in the Void, I'd disappear once my tangent changes anyway, but I've set in motion the events that will need to happen before you reappear again in the distant future. Sometimes the intentional creation of paradoxes can be helpful, though Noel could tell you that. One more thing, and this is important; I can't tell you what's going to happen or how to prevent it because it'd mess with the timeline, but just…don't ever give up hope, even in your darkest moments. Good luck, Hope."_

"So, what did you say to yourself?" Vanille asked, extending the vowel in the first word.

"Something that doesn't even seem possible, how can a future me do something that changes how he got here in the first place? For one, wouldn't I have to do the exact same thing he does? And for another, how can we stop something that's necessary for us to get to that point in the first place? Wait," and he turned to one of the scientists, "How long was my counterpart working for the Academy? I left in 5AF, do you know what time I returned to work?"

"Just a few hours after you originally left according to our records, sir. Why?"

"The other me said to not to return to my work with the Academy at all, maybe that's how he planned to stop his own timeline. He mentioned creating a paradox to hold the events that he created to reach whatever end goal we're aiming for steady in the face of changing timelines."

"Changing anything can create a huge disturbance in the timeline, we learned that from Yuel. The slightest thing caused her to see a new timeline and die. If you changed anything now, it's possible everything after could change too," the pink-haired girl explained, pressing a finger to her chin thoughtfully.

"I just hope I was right. I guess the other me is never coming back, he went into the Void to remove himself from the equation. I hope one day I'm strong enough to do that, end my life for the good of the world."

"You are, in every time I've met you, you were the strongest person I knew. But hopefully, this time around you won't have to be left behind or kill yourself," the handsome brunet man returned, voice heavy with conviction.

"So, you said this was just a way to test a theory, where are we going next?"

"We're hoping to go pretty far in the future, see what happened as a result of our meddling up to this point. If something else went wrong, which it probably did, we'll have to solve the paradox that caused the problem. After that, we should be set to go," Snow said with a broad gesture.

"That is if Caius doesn't create more paradoxes for us to fix. I'm sure he'll do his best to stop us, just like he did the first time."

"I know he's a human and all life is valuable and all, but can't we just kill him if-"

"_No_!" Came a collective shout from all of the other time travelers that cut off the rest of his sentence, momentarily shocking him into silence.

"That's the reason why the world ended last time, we can't let that happen again. If we do then everything we've done up to this point, everything everyone sacrificed, will be meaningless. I can't be the cause of the end of days again, once is enough."

"How did killing this Caius cause the death of the Goddess?" Hope pressed, knowing from the others what he meant by that.

"Within his chest beats the heart of Etro, and he ran himself through on my sword, killing her. I tried to stop him, but he was too strong. I'm sure if given the opportunity, he would do the same again, which is why I don't want to fight him."

Hope nodded, internally wondering why the Goddess would give an apparently evil man her heart, logically making him invulnerable and timeless. He was missing most of the story, he could tell that much, but now didn't seem like the time for asking. They were setting up an impromptu camp in the ruins near the operations tent, mostly just a bunch of sleeping bags set out with a fire between them. They'd all been in the wild long enough at one point or another to handle sleeping under the stars without a tent above their heads. For the first time things felt like they did five years ago, when it was just them against the world, the bonds of their friendship apparently strong enough to last centuries. The absence of Lightning sat like a knife in his stomach, their family didn't feel complete without the woman who was like an older sister to him, and an actual older sister to one of their members. As they curled up to go to sleep, he thought of something.

"You guys said that in the future, Lightning dies in Valhalla, right?"

"Sort of, she crystalized and became one with the throne of the Goddess…For all intents and purposes she's dead," Noel explained, purplish eyes curious.

"But Valhalla is a land without time right? So if she was ever alive in Valhalla, and ever dead as well, she must at all times be both dead and alive. So if we can change the timeline, maybe when we get to Valhalla and see her, she'll be alive. Technically, until someone consciously knows whether she's alive or dead, she has to be both."

"Well I hope that made sense to you, because the rest of us are lost," Sazh answered, echoing the expressions on the others' faces.

"Before getting promoted and transferred to Bresha, I majored in theoretical physics. The leading theory at the moment is that until something is observed, it is in a state of endless possibilities. This is especially applicable in time and paradox research. By the same extent, this is how the Goddess is still alive in this time even though she's timeless, and like Lightning, would have to be dead at all times if she died ever. That's why you can change history back to the way it should be according to you, and still end up with completely different timelines, outcomes, from one moment to the other. Nothing was technically wrong in the first place, the paradoxes you fixed were just unusual possibilities you made the assumption were erroneous. So long as time travel was possible, anything that happened was well within the bounds of reason, otherwise you'd have to admit you caused an irreversible paradox every time you entered a different time."

"He might be right, kupo. Otherwise every time we changed the timeline we would have disappeared like Snow. But we never went poof, kupo," Mog piped up finally.

"The little fella's got a point, every time you guys finished off a timeline's paradoxes, you should have went back to point A like I did and that gate should have been eliminated completely. Keeping them open would just leave them vulnerable to someone going back and altering things again, doesn't make sense," the large blond man mused out loud.

"I never thought of it like that," Noel replied, thoughtful.

He fell silent, guessing they all had enough to think about for the night. As it was he doubted he would be able to sleep. There were too many theories to consider, possible outcomes of their actions. The time traveling duo had provided a lot of support for some of the leading ideas in his time, but that didn't mean they were absolutely correct. He'd just have to hope for the best and wait until they reached the end of their path. Surrounded by friends that had become a family to him, albeit with two members he was less familiar with, he memorized the constellations while the dominos of probability toppled in patterns in his mind.


	2. Chapter 2

Sorry this took so long, I'm simply juggling too many projects to get any of them done in a timely manner.

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><p>He expected someone to rouse when he got up, almost counted on it, but he assumed they would just go back to sleep. Noel was fully capable of handling himself alone, and everyone understood why he needed to be alone right now. It wasn't until he caught footsteps behind him in the corridors of rock of the Yaschas Massif that he realized his error; everyone except Hope knew why he was restless and upset. There was no acceptable way of explaining it to him either, just as he couldn't ever tell Serah that in the future that may or may not exist anymore she had died, knowledge of events like that often caused them to become self-fulfilling prophecies. The last thing he needed was for Hope to attempt a relationship because he thought he had to, or for Serah to end up dying because she knew she would. Mind heavier now than it had been when he got up, he sat on the edge of one of the many cliffs in this area.<p>

"I don't need to be babysat, Hope, you should go back to camp."

"I'm not here because I think you need help, I'm here because friends help each other," the silver-haired man replied, hand on his hip and head cocked slightly to the side in what was apparently a timeless mannerism.

"You used to give me the exact same look. You really haven't…or didn't change at all. It's kinda funny, I always assumed you'd gotten more socially awkward as you spent time with your research, but seeing you now I guess you've just always been that way. No idea how you managed to live with Alyssa for any period of time."

"Not happily, I would imagine. Now you're going to tell me we eventually got married or something similarly horrid."

Noel couldn't help it, he laughed, "Wow, no. You maintained a strained working relationship until she was arrested for working with Caius and nearly killing us with a booby-trapped gate artefact."

"That's a relief, to know I had never done something as stupid as getting involved with her. Can I ask you something? Why don't you like Snow, does it have something to do with Serah? There's not something going on between you and her, is there?"

"Where the hell do you get these ideas? Serah's like a little sister to me, and even if I did feel that way about her, she's practically married to Snow. I don't get along that great with Snow, you're right, but we set aside our differences a while ago. He's just too much of a big damn hero for me, he doesn't think about how others would feel if he died and just goes in headfirst, even if it's a stupid idea from the beginning."

"I used to have the same problem with him, but likewise I got over it. I was really young when we were branded, so he took care of me a lot when we were in danger. Everyone did."

"But Lightning most of all. She's like an older sister to you, and that's why in any time you've been so eager to try and rescue her."

"You know a lot about me. How much time did you spend with my other self?"

"Three years. It was very enlightening."

"And Serah wasn't there for that, was she?" The green-eyed man guessed, surprising Noel.

"How did you figure that out?"

"You're more comfortable with me than you are with her, and if she had been around the whole time there's no reason we'd become more closely acquainted with one another than you and her. So, what happened?"

"I keep forgetting you're a genius. You can never tell her this, under any circumstance, but…She died. When the Goddess died, she saw the future and...Eventually we hypothesized that because her ability was tied to the Goddess, it's entirely possible it wasn't the vision that killed her."

"Do you ever wonder that changing the timeline as you've been doing could be causing more harm than good?"

"Every day. Sometimes I think things would have been better if Etro had just let me die in the desert I came from instead of transporting me to Lightning in Valhalla. But I trust that she knew something that I don't, that she wouldn't set into motion a series of events that would end in her death and the eventual destruction of the entire world at the hands of chaos. There has to be a reason we're able to traverse the timeline, and I hope it's not just so I can watch everyone I care about die, or know that I've abandoned them."

There was a somber pause in which he considered whether his life really had been worthwhile up to this point; as much as he'd like to think he was working toward something more promising for everyone, he wouldn't know for sure until he saw it. Even then, after all that had happened in his past and the world's future, it would take him a long time to believe it.

"So Cocoon fell, right? It must have if you recovered Vanille and Fang. How did everyone survive it, I'd imagine the impact itself wiped out several cities on Pulse?"

"You built a second Cocoon using fragments that created artificial floatation to lift it, built it out of adamantite so it held against the onslaught of chaos and the shockwave created by Cocoon's fall. It was called Bhunivelze, and it was truly spectacular. A lot of the citizens worshipped you like a god since you essentially created their world, until you passed a law making it illegal to do so. You're oddly humble for someone so intelligent."

"I've just always been in the right place at the right time, nothing particularly unique about that. My father is one of the founders of the Academy, not a surprise I got promoted off the bat and advanced from there in the future."

"I was never able to convince you of this in the future either, but believe me when I say you deserve all the praise you get, Hope," he replied as he stood up and ruffled the other's hair playfully, starting back toward camp.

The sound of a behemoth caused him to whirl, the giant albino creature slashing at the green-eyed man and throwing him across the small distance to the adjacent rock wall. His boomerang was in his hand before Noel could unsheathe his swords, reminding the elder that Hope wasn't just an intellectual. They made short work of the hulking beast, the silver-haired man felling it before it could transform with a powerful wind spell, and the brunet wondered when Hope had picked up magic. The older version he knew didn't have any magical abilities after he lost his brand, and he never developed them over the course of five hundred years either. Healing his companion's injuries, he asked after it.

"I don't know, before now I couldn't use magic at all. I wonder if…" he trailed off, pulling at the handkerchief he always wore on his wrist.

"What is it?"

"It's in the same place as my old brand, but it's not the same. Does this symbol look familiar to you, Noel?" He asked, holding out his arm.

"Etro," he huffed out, breathless as he turned away from the newfound pseudo-l'cie, pulling on his hair absently.

"Are you swearing, or is this literally the brand of the Goddess Etro?"

"The second one. You probably got it when I gave you that shard or when we went through the gate, you just didn't know you could use magic again until you were cornered. I don't know what it means though, Etro isn't a fal'cie, she shouldn't want to brand people. Maybe Snow could tell us, he managed to get his brand back, after all."

"We don't have to ask, if it'll help me save the world I don't really care how or why I got it, or what'll happen once we're done."

"But I care, Hope, I can't have my actions cause the death of another innocent person that I-" he started before snapping his mouth shut, shaking his head and walking back toward the settlement.

"Serah's fate was never your fault, Noel."

He froze, trapped in a memory for a moment, and grit his teeth as he continued. It never occurred to him it would be so hard to deal with this Hope, he thought the parallels between him at thirty and him at nineteen would be few and far between, but they were so like each other it was frightening. The man with violet eyes had imagined the hardest part would be giving up the man he loved, but it was becoming clear that it was going to be dealing with a version he could so easily love but couldn't touch. Sometimes he wondered what he'd done so wrong that he was being tested like this. Maybe not killing Caius when he won the battle against the man at the end of days was where this all started to fall apart. If he'd just accepted his role and taken the heart of Etro, then Caius would never have started to change the timeline to protect Yuel. But then it would have been him driven insane by an endless life of watching the girl he cared for so much die over and over. He scoffed at himself, he was already on the path to watching the people he loved cease to exist repeatedly.

Lying back down on his sleeping bag, he stared up at the stars, tracing constellations in unfamiliar places. It would be difficult to bring up the issue of brands without letting on that Hope had one now, he'd have to successfully frame it as pure unprovoked curiosity, made all the more difficult by the fact that he didn't like Snow enough to just strike up a random conversation with the taller man. The blond wasn't stupid by any means either, he'd probably catch on fairly quickly that there was some underlying motivation behind the queries. Sighing, he closed his eyes and tried to get some sleep.

* * *

><p>They broke camp early that morning, preparing to jump four hundred years into the future, where plans to build the new Cocoon should have been underway, if everything the other Hope had done was adequate. It was odd to think of himself as three people, knowing he'd existed in two timelines other than this one, that this was at least the third reality he was participating in since they'd all been freed of their brands. Time was a messy thing, especially when you started tearing it apart by the seams. Checking his bandanna to make sure his new brand was well covered, he wondered if maybe he should find some clothes in the future that were a little more apt for fighting for his life than his Academy uniform. Shrugging, he supposed it could wait until he was sure he actually needed to fight at all. He wasn't holding his breath for the prospect of everything going exactly to plan after so little work, if he'd learned anything over the time he spent as a l'cie it was that even when they fought to the brink of death things still never quite went their way. There was no reason for this to be any different.<p>

"Hurry up Hope, time's not going to wait on you," Vanille goaded, flouncing over to him while the others headed to the gate.

"Well actually," he replied with a smile, enjoying her cheer.

"_I_ won't wait on you, so hurry up," Fang interjected, quirking a playful smile at him and tugging her orange-haired companion after the rest of the group.

With a glance back at the ruins, he noticed that Noel was hanging back to wait for him, pensive. It was increasingly apparent that the brunet was attached to him more than the others, and he wanted to press about what their relationship had entailed over those three years. Walking toward the portal, he pulled the shard of Etro's throne he'd been given out of his pocket and watched the shifting colors. It was odd to think a bit of Lightning's soul might be in the chunk of crystal, since she'd merged with the holy throne. He missed her deeply, perhaps more than all of his other friends, and wasn't sure if he felt better knowing she wasn't in the pillar, because if she had been she'd be here now with Vanille and Fang.

"Hey, Noel, how can Vanille and Fang be here with us and simultaneously in the pillar, wouldn't that cause a paradox?"

"It might, but if it did, it would cause a paradox in the pillar, not here. From what Serah told me, their souls are somewhat mobile, so it's possible that they simply merged with their living selves and the crystals in the pillar are empty husks. I'll admit I never had reason to learn much about l'cie and the crystallization process."

He pursed his lips and decided to let the explanation satisfy him for now, he had far too many questions that involved lengthy probability equations based almost entirely on conjecture to get stuck on ones of little significance. Pressing his hand to the gate, he was less surprised this time when he found himself in the Historia Crux, getting as used to the sensation as he likely ever would. Noel was directly behind him, the others just ahead as they led the way to the future. He felt bad for his other self, it had to be depressing to be surrounded by time travelers and be mysteriously unable to do it himself. Avoiding the urge to touch his brand, he chased after the others as they disappeared through the quivering cogs.

Managing to land on his feet this time, something Snow and Vanille failed to do once again, he was instantly struck by the wrongness of the place they landed. Cocoon was no longer held up by a crystal pillar, instead from their vantage point on some sort of tower he could see the husk of it and the massive destruction it had left in its wake. A large swath of Pulse had been completely wiped out, nothing but bare dirt. There were no birds or dragons in the sky around or above them, and the plains below seemed similarly lifeless.

"I'm guessing a paradox of some sort happened in the past that caused this?" He asked, the others silent as they surveyed the devastation.

"Yeah, but it's hard to know when. Usually we find an artefact that takes us there, but we're obviously not limited to artefacts anymore and as far as I know, they've disappeared," Noel answered, the only one of them that appeared to be paying any attention to him.

"We could look inside this tower and see if anyone is alive to explain to us what happened? If not, there might be working computers still, like Augusta Tower," Serah suggested, apparently naming off a place she'd been to over their travels.

"Or we could travel to where the pillar used to be and see if there's a paradox there that we can fix," Snow returned, hand on her shoulder as if he was afraid she'd fall off the edge. Knowing that the blond man had had to live for years without her made it easier to understand his overcautious mannerisms.

"We could always split up and meet tonight," Hope suggested, noting the way Noel unconsciously gravitated toward him as if claiming a side.

"Good idea Hope, which way did you want to go?" Vanille asked, smiling briefly before looking wistfully toward Pulse.

"To whatever is left of the pillar, if we're splitting up."

"Sounds good to me, Serah and I will take the tower. Sazh, why don't you come with us? Noel, Hope, Vanille, and Fang can travel across Pulse. You have farther to go, so might as well take the extra person," Snow decided, already walking toward the door of the tower without waiting for them to agree. It still rubbed Hope the wrong way sometimes, but he'd come to accept the other's brash attitude and leadership style.

There was an operational elevator on the outside of the tower so they took that down to ground level, the two female Pulsians bounding off immediately into the barren wilds. He stopped to take in his surroundings before following them, noting the lack of even moss growing on the ground. The shockwave must have killed everything off fairly recently if even pioneer species hadn't moved in to take the land back.

"C'mon slowpoke," the pigtailed woman called after him, drawing him out of his musings to jog after them, ever-present brunet companion at his side.

He was glad he'd kept in shape despite how much time he'd been devoting to his work, regularly running five or ten miles a day and doing basic combat training with anyone who wanted to spar with him in the event his friends ever needed him again. It was hard enough to pull his own weight as a l'cie with magic, and even though he had it again it was better for everyone that he'd gotten stronger than he had been back then. He didn't have the feral grace of Fang or the sheer power of Snow, but he didn't really need to. Each person only really needed to be able to fill two or three different positions in their paradigms and they already had a full roster of commandos with the addition of Noel.

It didn't take long before they discovered the plains were not in fact barren, but teeming with cieth of all kinds that were all too happy to attack anything that moved. Now was not a good time to be unable to use his magic in front of Vanille and Fang, but if he couldn't cut a path with his boomerang and his fists, he'd simply have to. He had to question why they could still use magic, but he supposed the Goddess never removed their brands because otherwise they wouldn't have remained crystal while in the pillar. Driving his gloved hand through the chest of one of the Vampires he caught his electrified weapon with the other and sent it back out after one of the flying monsters. The dual-wielding swordsman was at his back, making short work of anything that dared come near the silver-haired scientist.

"So, the last son of Pulse has returned to attempt to change the future again. Didn't get enough of it the first time?" A man with purple hair said over the last cries of the decimated cieth, standing about ten yards away from him.

"Caius! You bastard, what are you doing here, and how do you know about that timeline?" The man he spoke to replied, dark brows furrowed deeply.

"Yuel told me of your failure and subsequent travels to repair it. I would have thought you would have realized the inevitability of this world's end at the hands of the chaos from Valhalla. Etro will die, Yuel will die, and Serah will die. Just as it was before."

"No, that's not true. If Etro is alive now then we can stop you and change the future again. Time isn't a static thing, nothing ever has just one outcome," the green-eyed man argued, already disliking this man for the transgressions of a past that never happened.

"You must be the one that created the new world and facilitated this timeline. Yuel has died over a dozen times simply because of your meddling," the Guardian said with a snarl, advancing on him.

Noel ran in front of him and sheathed his weapons, and while the two actions seemed to be in direct opposition to each other as far as protecting Hope, he didn't have time to think about it.

"You still don't get it, do you? Yuel is fine with the way things are, what you've been doing upsets her. Do you really want her to die forever when all she wants is to keep coming back to you? Stop being so selfish!" The brunet shouted, a dark undercurrent of rage and anguish in his voice.

"Says the boy who tampered with time first to save himself from a fate of loneliness, and again to build a better future for the person he loved. You're twice a fool and you dare attempt to lecture me?"

His hand glowed and he summoned an Eidolon, a humanoid version of Bahamut that radiated the same pulsing magic that caused the time anomalies, Chaos. The two female fighters immediately called out their own spirits and took to the air to fight him off, Hope guessing that it was up to them to disable the massive monster's master. Noel appeared to be unable to use his swords against the man for whatever reason, so they would probably have to depend on magic and hand-to-hand combat to take down their opponent. Sighing, he was glad he wasn't a scrawny fourteen year-old anymore.

His boomerang was struck aside and sent flying somewhere in the dust the first time he tried to use it against the man with the greatsword, forcing him to forget about getting out of this without using magic. If he was lucky, the other two wouldn't notice, and if they did they'd keep it to themselves. He knew Vanille was good at keeping secrets, and he had to imagine Fang would have his back on the issue as well, even if it meant lying. He really wasn't ready to bring it up with anyone until he understood what it meant and why he had it when no one else appeared to.

Ducking under the swing of Caius's sword he punched his opponent in the gut, rolling out of the way of his answering downswing. This would definitely be a hell of a lot easier if he wasn't in a uniform that restricted his movements. Noel distracted the dark-eyed man with a fireball, giving Hope time to chant his own spell. It would be difficult if not impossible for them to take him down without weapons, their only hope was to keep knocking him out of range until the two women could come to their aid. Summoning up a tornado he watched the massive column of wind carry the madman a hundred feet away, buying them a few seconds to regroup.

"Noel, why aren't you using your weapons?"

"Last time I fought him he impaled himself on my sword to destroy Etro's heart. Can't risk it. Not again."

"Why can't he just do that right now with his own sword?" It seemed obvious to him.

"I don't know, maybe it doesn't fit with his plan, but I'm not willing to risk reality on an assumption."

"Not this time anyway," Hope muttered, thinking of how much they'd already done that could have completely shattered the time-space continuum.

He didn't have time to dwell on the double-standards of his companion because Caius had recovered from being thrown by the gust of wind and wasn't about to give them a chance to catch their breath. Snarling, he attacked Noel, who kicked his blade out of the way and punched him in retaliation, compact muscle lending itself well to close-quarters combat. Glancing at the weapons sheathed uselessly on his back, Hope had an idea that he was completely certain would convince Noel to never speak to him again, despite whatever bond his other self had developed with the man.

"Duck!" He yelled as he ran at his companion, yanking out the gladius-style sword as the other jerked downward.

Channeling all the rage he could muster, he slammed into Caius and plunged the blade into the older man's abdomen, safely away from his heart. It disgusted him to be this violent with a human, but just like when he was fighting the PSICOM officers, he had no choice. Withdrawing the weapon, he jumped out of the other's range and let him collapse, Caius's hand going to his wound to heal it.

"So the academic does know how to fight, but do you know what you're doing? Do you really think you can save everyone? Are you like Noel, a child that believes everyone can get a happy ending? You can save the world or yourself, but not both."

"I don't believe you, but if it comes to that I'll gladly die to save the world," he replied, glad that the noise from the fight above them was enough to drown out their conversation to everyone else; he didn't need Noel knowing he was willing to throw his life away, the other man seemed set on keeping him alive.

"I'll help you in your efforts, then," he replied with a dark smile, and it wasn't until he saw the shadow moving across the barren ground that he understood.

"Hope, look out!" Vanille screamed from her perch on Hecatoncheir, watching as the dark dragon careened out of their range and straight for him.

Rolling out of the way of the monster's massive claws as he landed, he wasn't fast enough to dodge the swipe it made just after touching down; the last thing he saw was a flash of black scales and everything went dark.

* * *

><p>Swearing under his breath, Noel ran to where Hope landed once Fang's Eidolon had dragged the Chaos dragon away. The silver-haired man was unconscious and breathing irregularly, probably had a punctured lung from a broken rib. He coughed hard enough that he came to, though he was as out of it as one could expect from someone bleeding to death internally. Blood dribbled out of his mouth as he coughed and it turned the Pulsian's insides cold as he frantically healed the other's wounds, cursing himself for letting the scientist come so close to getting killed. Call him selfish, but he felt like if he lost Hope, even if everyone else was saved it would be meaningless for him. A hollow victory. Lightning's last words had been that it was up to them to keep hope alive, and he'd come to understand she meant that in more than one way.<p>

"So distracted you've forgotten that you're in battle, pathetic," the purple-haired man said, tapping his chin up with the tip of his greatsword.

"You mean like you've failed to notice that Yuel is twenty paces behind you?" He spat, glancing past the man's shoulder to convince him of the lure.

As soon as his opponent turned he shot forward to land a sharp uppercut on his jaw, knocking him off balance. Punching his old friend twice in the stomach, he kicked the other hard in the ribs, throwing him to the side. Saying the words to the most powerful fire spell he knew, he took aim and watched as the explosion sent Caius flying. He grunted as he landed, casting another healing spell on himself and likely about to run out of mana.

"I'd love to continue to play with you, but this time I'll leave it to the paradox to destroy you. Yuel is calling me," he said before his Eidolon dissipated and he vanished, presumably using his magic to access the Histora Crux.

Vanille and Fang dismissed their own summons once they were on the ground, moving to Hope's side as he attempted to stand. The brunet man was there to catch him when he collapsed in a fit of coughing to get the rest of the blood out of his lungs, holding him up until he regained his balance.

"Did he-did he say anything, Noel?" The green-eyed male asked once he could breathe deeply enough to speak.

"Just that he'd leave it to the paradox to kill us, though I'm not sure what he meant by that. Could mean now, could mean in another timeline altogether."

"Only one way to find out, you both good to go?" Fang asked, already turning and walking toward the place there the pillar should have been before they answered.

"You okay, Hope?" He quested more quietly, holding him at arm's length until he was certain the younger man wasn't going to faint.

"Fine, thanks Noel. Sorry I used your sword."

"Doesn't matter, it worked. I should be apologizing for being too-"

"You're not weak. Nothing weak about not wanting to contribute to the end of the world. Come on, let's go face whatever else this world has to throw at us."

Frowning, he let the topic drop, not in the mood to argue over whether he really was a useless coward or not. There were bigger things to waste their time discussing, like the fate of the world that rested solely in their hands. The familiar feeling of running through a barren wasteland being attacked by random monsters brought back his resolve to make sure their world didn't end up like this again, because Etro wasn't going to give him any more second chances.

"I think we've found our paradox," Fang said, hands on her hips as she looked toward what appeared to be a crystalline dragon.

It was massive, coiled up like a spiny snake, its nearly-clear head watching them unblinkingly, though it was most certainly alive and conscious. It had a fragment in its throat, probably something it swallowed, which may have allowed it to devour the crystal around cocoon until it came crashing down. Spacetime warped around it as it unfurled, confirming it as the source of a paradox.

"So how exactly are we supposed to defeat this thing?" Hope queried as he searched in vain for a weak point.

"Smash it to bits I guess, I don't see any other way to fix the paradox," Noel answered with a shrug, pulling out his weapons.

"This seems like a time when having Snow around would come in handy."

The call of a chocobo alerted them to the arrival of the other group, Sazh, Serah and Snow riding in on three of the giant birds that the pink-haired woman had tamed over their time together. They had determined the source of the paradox through the entries in the tower they had infiltrated and come to help. With the seven of them working together, it wasn't long before they determined that the beast couldn't see at all, rather hunted by sense of smell and sound. Convincing a few of their chocobos to keen like their lives depended on it was enough to disorient it, while Hope, Sazh and Serah took turns with their ranged weapons distracting it by landing hits to its face. Vanille and Fang were holding the cieth that were converging on them at bay while the tall blond and Noel used fire and ice magic alternately to weaken the crystal on the monster's throat, each holding onto one of the pulsian's swords that were dug into the clear stone. Their goal was to take the fragment, hoping that would stop the otherwise impervious creature.

"Ready?" Snow asked breathlessly as they both loosened the weapons to ensure a quick escape before they were crushed.

Noel nodded and braced himself as the muscular blond slammed his fist into the weakened crystal, cracks spidering all along the area. Another strike and he was able to go through, cutting his arm in the process, but he was able to grab the irregularly-shaped purple fragment and tear it back out. It pulsed once, then went completely dark. They pulled the swords out and pushed off the snake's throat as it seized, cracks working their way all around it. Finally it hissed one last time and shattered into glittering dust that caught the light in rainbows and flashes.

"Will this bring the crystal pillar back then?" Hope asked as they gathered around the churning space-time anomaly.

"Hopefully, if not we might need to do something else too."

"Aren't we right where the pillar would be?"

The purple-eyed man had only seconds to consider the other's question before the paradox completely resolved itself, sending out a shockwave as the pillar and Cocoon exploded back into reality. They were all sent flying and he had just enough time to grab onto Hope before they were sent into one of the many smaller rips in space-time that were created on the echoes of the major one.

* * *

><p>Coughing as he surfaced, Hope quickly recognized that they'd fallen into the ocean close to the shore of New Bodhum, though it was clear it wasn't anywhere near the time when people had actually lived here. Noel was nowhere in sight, seconds passed before he found the man floating just under the surface, unconscious. Dragging him to the beach, he performed several chest compressions before managing to get enough air to the brunet's lungs for him to cough and regain consciousness. Letting the other clear his chest of water, he stripped off his coat and attempted to wring some of the moisture out of it.<p>

"Should we try to find the others, or do you think they ended up in an entirely different time?"

Violet eyes searched the area for a moment as he got his bearings, "I don't think they're here, my guess is that we all ended up in different places and times. Our best bet is to find a gate and go back to the time we just were and hope everyone else has the same idea. It looks like the sun will go down in about two hours, why don't we look for a gate in the immediate area, and then set up camp for the night if we can't find one?"

They searched for half an hour but there wasn't any gate nearby, so they set about collecting enough wood for a fire and stripping off most of their clothes so they'd dry before night set in. Nothing made sleeping more uncomfortable or dangerous than the threat of hypothermia.

"Thanks, by the way, for resuscitating me earlier," Noel said finally as they both stared into the fire.

"No problem, wasn't going to just let you die. Tell me, why did you grab onto me just before we went through the paradox? You could have done a lot of things in the two or three seconds before we got hit, but you chose that, why?" He wanted to add that there were at least two other people right next to him that he could have chosen to latch onto, but he kept that to himself for now.

"I didn't really think about it, I just did it. I guess because I didn't want either of us to end up in another time alone, or worse, among enemies. I could have grabbed Serah or Snow, but I assume Snow moved to protect his fiancée so they wouldn't have ended up alone either. The ones I'm most worried about are Sazh, Fang and Vanille, since they were so far apart from all of us. It's entirely possible they still ended up falling into the same paradox together…I'm sure they'll be fine," he finished thoughtfully, worrying his lip in his teeth.

"They're tough, they'll make it back. I'm sure most of them will beat us there."

Laying down on the bed of palm leaves each of them had made for themselves, he closed his eyes and forced himself to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

So this chapter is almost entirely plot but eventually we did need to have some of it somewhere, but luckily I enjoy writing plot so this only took me two and a half weeks instead of three months. Promise something more interesting next chapter.

**Note**: Dates are presented in DD/MM/YYY form because the American form is stupid.

* * *

><p>Hope poked the fire dejectedly, having woken from a nightmare a few minutes before. At least he hadn't been noisy; Noel was still fast asleep across from him. He pulled off the bandanna he'd chosen to leave on when he had otherwise stripped down to his boxers, too used to wearing it all the time to remind him of his friends and their travels together. Tracing the brand's unfamiliar pattern, he admired the slow thrum of magic that he could feel in his body again. It felt good to be powerful again, to know that losing his boomerang wasn't a death sentence anymore, that he could heal his companions if they needed it. It also proved that he was right about Etro, she couldn't have branded him if she didn't exist anymore, so somewhere she was alive, and cared enough to give them a fighting chance. He liked to think Lightning had had a hand in convincing her.<p>

Caius was an interesting foe, the man radiated a dangerous kind of insanity, the kind that stemmed from eons of mental deterioration. He'd been worn down by endlessly watching the girl he cared for and protected with his life die, to the point where he wanted to kill her permanently. It was a nonsensical madness, from what he gathered this Yuel embraced her fate, preventing her from returning to his side ever again seemed incredibly counterproductive. She would suffer more as a soul wandering Valhalla alone than she did dying in his arms only to return some indeterminate amount of time later.

Standing, he checked his clothes, pulling them on when they turned out to be fully dry through the virtue of a strong breeze. Stretching, he walked around a bit to work out some of his restless energy, eventually finding himself on a small rise looking up at the stars. Looking at the position of the constellations, he guessed it was somewhere between two-hundred and three-hundred years after the fall. It was surreal, the sensation of being alone in this vast wilderness, only the stars and possibly the gods as his company. He'd never been particularly religious beyond studying the science of the gods and fal'cie that currently and once roamed the terra and the cosmos above them, but just this once he thought it might be a good idea to actually pray. Taking out the shard of Etro's throne he'd been given, he studied the shifting magic within for a few moments while he chose his words.

"I know you're out there somewhere, alive, and maybe you're still listening for me even though I've never tried to talk to you. I just wanted to thank you, for freeing us from our brands in the beginning, and letting me be a part of this. For giving me the strength to protect my friends. Just…don't give up on us, okay? The human race may seem pretty unimpressive to you right now, with Caius trying to kill you and most everyone else selfishly worrying only about themselves, but Lightning isn't the only one willing to fight for you, for the future of our world. I don't know why you gave me your brand, but I'll make sure I earn it."

There was a moment of silence, and then the shard flared to life along with his brand, getting unbearably hot for a second before a beam of light shot out from his hand toward the beach. Shocked, he watched as the light turned to strange-colored fire that conjured up a gate near where their camp was set up. It glowed and flashed as it spun before the gyros finally settled into the pattern they remained in when the gate wasn't in use. Quickly reiterating his thanks, he wrapped the bandanna back around his wrist and pulled it tight with his teeth as he jogged down to the beach. Noel was wide awake and had just finished pulling his shirt over his head when he got there.

"Did you do this, Hope?" He asked, gesturing to the gate.

"Etro did, I uh…prayed to her, and I think this is her answer," he explained with a faint blush, slightly embarrassed to have to describe a fairly private moment.

"I'm glad she was listening then, come on."

They shot through the Historia Crux toward the year four-hundred again, arriving in a massive city with flying cars and towering buildings. Noel seemed widely unimpressed, so it had to be something that he was used to from traversing the timeline before; to Hope it seemed like just about the most impressive thing he'd ever seen.

"Noel, Hope, welcome back to the future!" Serah said cheerfully, jogging up to them with the others on her heels, "We were worried when you didn't come back right away."

"Had to ask Etro for a little help finding a gate to go through, sorry to worry you," the green-eyed man replied with a smile, batting down the temptation to ask just who had designed the fantastic city around them, having a feeling he knew the answer.

"So, any massive paradoxes we still need to repair?" Noel asked conversationally, still faithfully at his elbow.

"Not yet, plans are well under way for Bhunivelze and the Academy is excited to see their Director again. I hope you're prepared for god-worship because I couldn't convince any of these eggheads that you're really not that great," Snow teased with a smirk, eyes crinkling at the corners with a more genuine fondness.

"I'm not surprised they didn't believe a guy who has a haircut that makes him look like a chocobo and about as much brainpower as one too."

"You little-" Snow snapped, wrapping his arm around Hope's neck and ruffling his hair roughly, though he couldn't hold back a smile.

"Is there anything we still need to do in this era to help them?" Noel asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"The graviton cores, we have to go get them again. They're in different places this time, but it shouldn't be any more difficult than it was in the first place. Especially since now we have seven people to collect them. The scientists wanted to speak with Hope before we left again," the pink-haired woman explained, glancing back at the expansive structure in the center of the city.

"Right, let's do that then, wouldn't want to keep them waiting any longer," Hope said after he extricated himself from Snow's headlock.

"They've waited almost four hundred years, a few minutes isn't going to bother them," The brunet commented, but he knew that his silver-haired companion was excited to see all the advancements science had made in the past few centuries.

He was dragged away by what could best be described as a mob of fans having a borderline religious experience at meeting their hero the moment they entered the Academy building and as much as it was a bit upsetting to be away from the group again, he quickly had plenty to distract him from that feeling. Once he convinced them to ask him questions one at a time and they had settled in the center room of the building he started pulling up information on the terminal to catch himself up.

"Is it really true it only took you five years to build all the designs for Bhunivelze and come up with most of our working theories for quantum mechanics?"

"Uh, I guess, but that was a different me. That me died in the void so this me could continue on through the timeline. Did I come up with this "Inciting Incident" theory?" He asked, looking at a theory that in more brief terms stated at upon the first incident where the timeline is altered, infinite strings of reality are created, some more stable than others.

"Actually, that was one of the half-dozen theories Noel Kreiss developed, I was hoping to speak with him later about one of the other ones."

"Wait, Noel was there too?"

"According to your journal, he never left your side, and picked up a strong understanding of theoretical physics from his three years with the first you, and the time you spent together after that. We have your journal here, you can have it if you'd like, all of it has already been copied for further research."

"…Uh, thanks, I'd like that," he replied belatedly, mind searching for reasons that Noel would stay with him when everyone else had apparently died, and why he hadn't been mentioned going into the void in his other self's note to him.

"Did you encounter many paradoxes on the way to this time?"

"Just one, technically, and we resolved it. That's actually what took Noel and myself so long to return, we were sent into another time period through a paradox bubble when we fixed it, the blast knocked us back."

"Have you encountered Caius Ballad yet?"

"Yes, we did. You know about Caius?" He asked in return, wondering if that meant that the purple-haired man had terrorized his other self as well.

"Of course, he's the one with Etro's heart in his chest, he killed Noel in year four of your research."

He stopped typing and leaned on the railing below the holographic keyboard, knees suddenly too weak to hold him up on their own, breath caught in his throat. No wonder Noel hadn't had to sacrifice himself to the void, he'd already been murdered a year prior. It shook him, to know in another timeline he'd had to deal with losing a close friend, possibly the only close relationship he had then, if the others were off traversing the timeline.

"Director?"

"Sorry, what were you saying?"

"We were wondering if you could weigh in on what lead you to believe that entering Valhalla had rendered Snow and Lightning immortal for all intents and purposes and capable of appearing in all times simultaneously."

So Snow had been in Valhalla and hadn't told him, he'd have to discuss it with the man himself later, "It's the same as it is with Etro being there, that's how I formed the theory in the first place, to explain how Etro could have died in one tangent but still been alive in others because there's no reason she could have stayed dead when her heart was still in multiple tangents. In a world without time, the chronology of events in our world shouldn't have any effect on when something happens. Caius killed himself and Etro while in Valhalla, yes, but since Valhalla exists outside of time and space, it doesn't matter when he did it. All events are happening simultaneously and infinitely in Valhalla until an outside force stabilizes a tangent and simply observing it changes the results. Right now, in Valhalla, Lightning is fighting Caius, Caius and Etro are dead, and Noel and Serah are still fighting him, and Etro is alone in the land of the dead welcoming the souls of the lost, all simultaneously…" He trailed off as he searched more data, not sure how far into it they wanted him to go, how much he was repeating.

"You said it related to the Inciting Incident theory…I think I get it now. Noel and Serah traveling the timeline stabilized reality into fewer tangents, lessening the chaos of the universe to a manageable level, which violates thermodynamics but all that chaos is contained in Valhalla…But there are still millions of possible tangents that haven't been destroyed by the actions of time travelers, so as long as those tangents exist, it's possible for actions in Valhalla to change, so they're in a constant state of uncertainty. Since Lightning and Snow could leave Valhalla at any time and still be in Valhalla, they could die in one time period, and their selves before they left would still be in the other realm, unharmed. How do you account for the soul-cloning, though? How could they exist in two places simultaneously when we can assume there are a finite amount of souls?"

"Because you're assuming incorrectly. Yuel is proof that souls aren't finite, she exists in every time and she was once in Valhalla too, meaning her soul is in millions of tangents and for the moment eternally in the land of the dead as well. It's possible that unique souls are a limited commodity in a given time period, but the souls themselves are not, it seems as though Etro or just the world itself can clone as many as is necessary for reality to continue to exist. Which is probably the only reason the universe didn't collapse on itself when she altered the time-space continuum."

This seemed, finally, to quiet their chatter for the moment, allowing him to look up more on his own research in the hopes it would give him any clue as to how he was supposed to help them in this era or any other, beyond the obvious need for supplies. He had a feeling his journal would be a lot more helpful, and it would be reassuring to take back something personal of his from the strangers who had sifted through and copied it mercilessly.

"I never thought of that, it makes perfect sense for all the other theories to remain scientifically valid, otherwise the idea of multiple tangents existing in the same reality doesn't work…That's probably what's always bothered me about the Inciting Incident theory," the same woman who had mentioned Noel earlier said, snapping her fingers like she was having an epiphany.

"Did you have any other questions? I'd like to get my journal and start working on collecting the graviton cores, and anything else we need to take care of before we jump through time again."

"That's all we really needed to know for now, any other questions can take a backseat to creating Bhunivelze. Did you have any questions our database can't answer?"

Something occurred to him, though he supposed he could check the journal, he had a captive audience with every reason to know as well, "The self the published all these theories and created the plans for the new Cocoon, do you know if he had a brand, perhaps referred to as a l'cie brand, or something similar? Could he use magic?"

"Not that he ever mentioned, and none of the people working with him mentioned any kind of markings or magical abilities. Was there a reason for your question?"

"Just an idea, thanks."

One of the researchers' interns returned with his journal in a small messenger bag and handed it to him, Hope slinging it over his neck and shoulder and thanking her. Forcing a smile, he said goodbye to the scientists for the moment, wanting nothing more than to sit down somewhere secluded and read his journal, maybe access the database from a private terminal.

"You alright, Hope?" Noel asked, leaning up against the wall next to the door.

He started, jolted out of his thoughts by the voice, "Y-yeah, I'm fine, just…is there anywhere we can stay while we're here? To sleep, and have some space?"

"Sure, I'll ask them if they have any free rooms in the graduate student dorms," the brunet answered immediately, walking up and flashing a smile at the lady at the front desk.

They conversed briefly, during which she flushed an interesting shade of pink, though whether Noel was flirting with her or she was stunned by their relative fame was hard to tell from this distance. She reached down and handed him two key cards and he turned back to his companion, giving Hope a _look,_ like he was the only living thing in the world. It was…reassuring, but at the same time he felt pressured to live up to whatever he was in a future that didn't exist to deserve that smile.

"We have to share a room, but I can leave you alone if you want," he explained quickly as he handed the green-eyed teen one of the squares of plastic.

"I want to read, so I'm going to be terrible company, but I wouldn't mind if you were there."

"I'll probably just nap, it's been three days since I last slept for more than an hour or two. The others went…shopping, or something, I think. Sazh was complaining."

"That sounds about right. Any idea how to get to the dorms?"

"Of course," he returned with an easy smirk, leading the other out the door and through the maze-like city.

Once there, he sat on the bed and opened the journal, surprised when a slip of paper fell out. He assumed that though the academics had sifted through it, they had the care to leave it in the exact same condition as it had been originally, including anything loose inside. Opening it, he realized it was a note to himself, and he wasn't sure if he should feel touched or self-absorbed that he'd thought of himself. Thinking about it gave him a headache, so he dropped the idea and read the tiny scrap of paper.

'_Hey Hope, before you read this journal, just know that it might change a lot of things, but if you don't read it you might never know.'_

Though the warning gave him pause, his curiosity demanded that he read on, consequences be damned. He knew eventually that mindset was going to bite him in the ass, but for now he assumed he wasn't going to get injured by words in a book. Glancing once at the apparently unconscious Pulsian's back, he flipped the first page of the journal and began to study a life he never had to live.

The book was thick for a diary, though most of the entries were short, and days went by without any at all. Noel was mentioned several times, ever-present as help and emotional support to a frustrated Hope attempting to engineer a new world. It was easy to see parallels between that violet-eyed fighter and this one, the unwavering companionship and bright smile that masked something darker. Then he came upon an entry with no equations or diagrams that was longer than two sentences, interest piqued.

_23/10/005AF_

_ Finally convinced Noel to tell me what's been bothering him for the six months we've been together working on this project. My other self and Noel were in love, and had been together for almost the entirety of the three years they spent trying to find a way back to fix the future. I'm not sure what to do, I have feelings for him, but I don't want him to think I'm starting a relationship out of the knowledge that I did it once before. I'm not sure if he'd welcome the idea of a romantic partnership between us anyway, it might remind him too much of a past he can never get back._

He set the journal down to breathe for a few minutes, just as confused about how to address the situation as that version of him was. It explained so much about their rapport with one another, yet left him with more problems than solutions. Biting his lip against the traitorous idea to just ask Noel how he felt about him, he went back to reading in the hopes his other self had bumbled through that section of the issue himself. It seemed that things had been awkward between the two for weeks, until he confronted the other about their feelings. It was terribly strange to realize that dozens if not hundreds of people had read this as well, it would border on downright embarrassing if he thought the opinions of scientists from the future mattered at all.

_18/3/006AF_

_ Snow appeared out of a gate here suddenly, on the verge of dying. I find myself missing my ability to use magic more and more each day, I couldn't do anything to heal him except give him potions and ethers so he could do it himself. He got his original brand back compliments of Etro when he started to search for Lightning, eventually getting dragged into Valhalla with her. Noel mentioned that he saw the Shiva Sisters fighting in the land of the dead with Odin, and finally we have an explanation for this, Snow was controlling them. He had been trying to fight back the monsters Caius had released to slow Light down when he was eventually overrun, and Etro threw him out through a gate to save him. He's recovering quickly, I am certain he will be leaving to continue to meddle in time soon. At least I know how he got his brand. _

Why would Etro give Snow his original brand back, but give Hope a different one? Was there a difference in their purpose, or was it her way of staking a claim on him? And why didn't the other him have a brand, he should have gotten it at the same time unless there was something different about their tangents before he even went through the gate the first time? Shaking his head and turning the page, he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep tonight. He had too much to think about.

There were hundreds more entries on his theories and his plans for the new Cocoon, including a side note that the theory of something being both alive and dead until it's observed only worked in situations involving the manipulation of reality, namely time travel creating multiple tangents of chronology that could lead to something both existing and not existing, and so on. It was a beautiful explanation in light of that, otherwise it found itself in some interesting conundrums. Apparently in the third year of his research, he had his father enter a time capsule set to the year five-hundred, when the new Cocoon would rise, leaving him with just the brunet swordsman. Then there was a month with no entries at all, an entire page of splattered ink mottled with water stains; tears, he supposed.

_2/8/009AF_

_ Noel's dead. Caius stabbed him through the heart. Maybe that's irony, or poetic. There was nothing I could do because I haven't been useful in nine damn years. I don't know why I'm bothering with this. What's the point of building a world if Noel isn't going to be there with me? Damn Etro and damn the human race anyway, it's their fault that any of this happened. I've devised a way to trap things in a paradox so they'd be accessible in another time, without completely destroying the fabric of reality like the larger contradictions do. I'll put my journal and the plans for Bhunivelze in one of the capsules that proved successful at surviving complete tangent collapse so people in the future can build this without me. I'll leave a crystal explaining myself to the incarnation of me that will inevitably complete the first part of the time cycle, tell him not to follow in my footsteps, and throw myself into the void. Maybe there I'll find Noel, one of him, at least. All I really know is that I can't live like this anymore. I've lost the man that I love and the only person who's stayed by my side these past four years. I don't know where all the others are now or if they even remember me by now, if they've just skipped to the future I created for them and are currently enjoying life with a different me altogether. I don't think I even care. This is my last entry._

He set the book down completely, taking a shaky breath. He could feel a resonance with this Hope; maybe it was empathy, maybe his mental anguish was strong enough to echo across the ever-changing continuum, but he was crying before he even realized it. The scientist had always been the kind to work unceasingly for his friends, drive himself to exhaustion for people who rarely thanked him or even acknowledged what he did, and that used to be okay. Only now, in two entire realities he had given everything up for the world and gotten nothing in return except having to watch his lover leave him for another world or die. He knew how bad that had to hurt, especially to know everything they had done and suffered for was largely pointless until someone else came along to pick it back up.

Allowing himself a moment, he leaned his forehead on his knees and cried for the poor other bastards who had the misfortune of owning his soul.

* * *

><p>As soon as he woke up, he knew something had to be wrong; he didn't rouse out of a deep sleep for no reason, especially when he was tired to begin with. Immediately turning to his companion's bed he realized he was woken by the quiet sobs of the green-eyed man, rolling out of bed quickly and crossing the tiny space between them.<p>

"Hope, what's wrong?" He asked softly as he sat behind the younger male and pulled him against his chest.

"My journal, the other me. You died, and he killed himself because of it," the teen explained briefly, taking a deep breath and wiping his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Hope, but why would he kill himself over the other me?" Unless…

"Were you ever going to tell me that you and the Hope you left behind in five-hundred AF were in a relationship?"

"I'd say no, but if you know that, then at some point I must have. I wasn't trying to hide anything from you. I just…"

"Didn't want me to try and start something with you merely because I'd done it before. Seems to be the same thing we agonized over in the other tangent as well."

"Do I make you uncomfortable?"

"If your constant proximity hasn't distressed me yet it's not going to just because I know in two different timelines we were boyfriends. Just…don't die, okay?"

"Right back at you. We've both died on one another enough for eternity, I think. Are you alright?"

"I'll be fine. I figured out how Snow got his brand, too. Doesn't tell me much about why I have one, the other me didn't. Etro gave Snow back his brand when he went to Valhalla, so I guess we're not in danger of losing him to crystallization unless she honestly imposed a time limit on a time-traveler."

"Seems like Snow wouldn't know anything then, I have…someone else I could ask about it. The security here is pretty tight, think you'd be safe for fifteen minutes while I left to talk to her?"

"Yuel, right, the Seeress? I should be fine, I can defend myself, and you'll only be gone as long as you need to be to avoid a paradox. Don't get trapped in the Void."

"How did you know I was going to see Yuel?"

"She's the only one left who has any idea what's going on, and she can see the future. Besides, I can imagine you miss her after so long."

"You know me pretty well, you're right. I'll be back, don't do anything dangerous while I'm gone."

"I'll stay here, promise."

Nodding and getting up, he gave the other one last smile before using his shard to jump into the Historia Crux, focusing on the Void as the gears shifted to guide him. Landing gracefully, he couldn't help but think of Hope, who had fallen on top of him the first time they went through the gate together. Things would likely be even more difficult for him, now that he knew he had started a relationship with the Hope that had sent himself into the Void, it just made everything seem more possible, and gave him many more reasons not to pursue it. Hope had killed himself after that Noel had died, and even if it was inevitable after he forced the tangent to collapse, it still shocked and disturbed him. He couldn't get so close to his version that the same could happen if he got killed, even dead he didn't want that on his conscience.

"You're troubled, Noel. What can I help you with?" The young woman asked as he walked up to where she was sitting on some stairs in the nonsensical architecture of the land beyond time.

"Yuel, it's good to see you again, even if you haven't met me yet," he sighed, sitting down next to her.

"Actually, I'm the soul of the Yuel that lived with you at the end of days. I was the Yuel you wanted to see, so I'm the one you got," she replied with a bright smile, stroking his hair out of his eyes gently.

"Is that how this works? I wanted to ask about Hope's brand. I need to know if he's suddenly going to die or crystallize or be sucked into Valhalla for eternity," he asked, dark blue eyes flicking up to look at her as he took her small hand in his.

"None of that, don't be silly. His new brand is Lightning's way of protecting him, and Etro's way of marking him. Etro believes in him, the brand gives him the power to see this through, and ideally, temporarily contain her heart when it's taken back from Caius. You see, the only way to stop him is to tear out the heart, and he'll live through that, for a while anyway. He'll die and join me in Valhalla."

"So, wait, Hope is going to become the vessel for Etro's heart? How long is temporarily?" Noel pressed, certain that was more dangerous than a lot of other worst-case scenarios he'd come up with.

"He won't be another Caius, Etro understands that humans will never be capable of carrying her heart for eternity. In the new tangent there's no place for Caius or myself. Our roles will become obsolete, and I'll be allowed to remain in Valhalla in eternal rest with the Goddess, and Caius. It's what he ultimately wanted, I think, but he went about everything the wrong way."

"Technically he went about it in a way that worked, so…wouldn't it be the right way? Long, but not necessarily incorrect."

"But he's hurt you so badly, and in the beginning he didn't want to. Even now…"

"He killed me, you know. One of me."

"Yes, I know. He was trying to stop Hope's research, prevent him from saving the future because during that timeline those Yuels died almost weekly because of how many new tangents he created and destroyed with his theories and experiments. He knew the only way to break Hope was to take you away. It was…it was hard to watch Hope's final months. You're both here, together, if that makes you feel any better."

"I feel a little better about that Hope, yeah. I can't stand to see him hurt, he deserves better. Better than the Void as a final resting place, better than the fate he was given, better than me."

"He would strongly disagree, and it's his opinion that counts, isn't it? You shouldn't try to prevent your relationship from happening just because you're worried one of you is going to lose the other."

"I'll let Hope be the judge of that, of the two of us, he generally makes the better decisions."

"And if he decides that he loves you?"

"Whatever will be, will be. I won't force him, but I won't refuse him either. I should go, I guess, unless you wanted me to stay a while?"

"No, one of the saner Caiuses is here to keep me company, you should return to Hope. Good luck, Noel," she sent him off with a kiss on the forehead before he stood and fled back into the space between times before he gave in to the desire to stay here forever.

The jog from the gate back to the dorm was enough to clear his head and confirm that nothing dire had happened since he was gone, or at least, not that he could tell. Pushing open the door to their room, he found that Hope had somehow fallen asleep, exhaustion taking over the need to wait for Noel's return. Gently carding a hand through the other's silvery hair, he felt the ghost of a smile creep onto his face, laying down on his own bed and deciding to take a nap as well.

* * *

><p>They were woken up by Snow knocking on the door and telling them it was time to go get the graviton cores, Hope looking like he had a headache either from crying or from not getting enough sleep. Still, he straightened his clothes dutifully and opened the door, Noel following him out. They were going to split up into three groups to get the seven cores, the time-travelers in agreement that it would be better if they used all of them instead of just the five minimum. They had nothing but time anyways.<p>

"Sazh, you go with Hope and Noel, it seems they're Caius's primary targets so it would be better to have an extra person on the team. Fang and Vanille and Serah and I will take the first four on the list, you guys get the last three, then meet back here an hour from now. If anything got swallowed by a giant monster, wait until we join up to take it on, okay?"

"You mean to say we shouldn't do anything you would do?" Noel chided, arms crossed over his chest.

"Yeah, that. Try not to get yourselves killed either, see ya," He returned irreverently, disappearing with his fiancé into the Crux.

"Asshole," the brunet spat, shaking his head and turning to the team, Sazh throwing up his hands and grumbling.

"Damn kids, always thinkin' they're invincible. Come on, let's get these three cores and get the hell to the future already, want to see my kid and relax."

"As if, you'll never really settle down, you know you'll be running airships with Dadj aboard in the future," the pale teen replied as they teleported into the twitching time-station.

"Nah, kid's gotta go to school, do his daddy proud. You should put in a good word for him, Hope, might get a scholarship to the Academy."

"It's free to attend the Academy here in the future. Secondary education, health care, and basic food is all free. So it will be on Bhunivelze, it's intended to be self-sufficient enough to facilitate social programs like that."

"If we can get it right, it really will be utopian, won't it?" Noel asked quietly.

"Yeah, I hope it'll be worth everything everyone has sacrificed so far," the scientist replied, solemn.

Noel nodded, wondering if there really was any outcome good enough to outweigh how much pain and suffering had occurred since Etro had altered the timeline. He supposed that for him, as long as Hope was there and finally happy, it would be enough. Even if they weren't together as anything more than vague friends it was better than having to live in a dying world devoid of hope.


End file.
